The Ontario Chamber of Commerce likely surprised everyone when they suggested in September the best way to adjust the minimum wage is to automatically link it to the cost of living. Many anti-poverty groups have been advocating for such a … Continue reading →
Continue readingTag: Minimum wage
The Progressive Economics Forum: Raising Ontario’s Minimum Wage
On Friday, the United Steelworkers made the following submission to Ontario’s Minimum Wage Advisory Panel. The United Steelworkers union endorses the Ontario Federation of Labour’s (OFL) call for a minimum wage of $14 per hour, to ensure that Ontarians who work full-time earn appreciably more than the poverty line. As
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Gordon Hoekstra reports on a study by British Columbia determining that Canada lacks any hope of containing the types of oil spills which will become inevitable if the Cons’ pipe-and-ship plans come to fruition. But once again, the Cons’ response is to make
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Once In A While Their Voice Is Heard
It is a truism to state that the poor have little power to influence the political discussion. Those toiling away at minimum wage jobs, our silent serfs, for want of choice, are one of the invisible minorities (perhaps soon to be a majority?) seemingly easy to ignore. This was baldly
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Armine Yalnizyan points out that Canada has followed the global pattern in which income growth has disproportionately been directed toward the few people with the most to begin with: Canada’s story pales in comparison – and so does our access to comprehensive and
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: More On The Minimum Wage
The struggle to raise the minimum wage has been the subject of several of my recent posts. The current wage of $10.25 in Ontario is as inadequate as the $7.25 that the majority of jurisdictions in the United States pays, forcing millions to live below the poverty line even if
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Monday Morning Thought
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Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Struggle To Raise The Minimum Wage
I have written several recent posts on the campaign gaining traction across the United States to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour from the current average of just over $7. That struggle has now come to Ontario, where those living in poverty thanks to the current minimum of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how the U.S.’ movement for fair fast food wages might be explained in part by greater recognition that many workers will be in the service sector for the long haul – while any Canadian equivalent may be suppressed by the use of temporary foreign workers. For further reading…–
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Elizabeth Warren Speaks
In addressing a recent convention of the AFL-CIO, outspoken U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, about whom I have posted several times, offered some stirring words. Although directed to an American audience, her sentiments are equally applicable here, given the anti-union and anti-people demagoguery and practices of Mr. Harper’s regime at the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
This and that for your Labour Day reading. – Jared Bernstein writes about the fight for fair wages in the U.S. fast food and retail industries. And Karen McVeigh notes that political decision-makers are starting to try to get in front of the parade of workers seeking a reasonable standard
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Labour Day, 2013, in North America: Facing up to improving society for everyone
Striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn., in 1968. Martin Luther King played an active role in their struggle. Below: Striking Fast food workers in New York in 2013; Dr. King addressing the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963; marchers on the National Mall in Washington. With Labour
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Struggle For Dignity
All of us have a right to respect and dignity. Many of us do not receive it. Having been ‘educated’ in the Catholic system at a time when the application of both verbal and physical abuse was regarded as proper corrective methodology, I experienced many times in my younger life
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne writes that it’s long past time for Newfoundland and Labrador to boost its minimum wage: Last year, a statutory review of minimum wage, conducted by a government-appointed panel, called for action to be taken on the minimum wage. The panel recommended
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Mark Leiren-Young shares Corky Evans’ perceptive take on how the B.C. NDP has lost its way – and the message is one which we should apply elsewhere as well: I remember when one of the Leaders I worked for asked some guys
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: More On The Struggle Of Minimum Wage Workers
We hear it all the time from those who slavishly and unconscionably parrot the corporate line: raising the minimum wage is a job-killer. While that rhetoric may serve the insatiable business appetite for greater and greater profits at the expense of vulnerable workers, it simply isn’t true. While I have
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Puncturing The Myth That Raising Minimum Wages Will Kill Jobs
The question of minimum wage has been very much a topic of discussion in alternative media of late, and I have written a few posts about the struggle. I am leading off today’s consideration of the issue with a well-considered letter from a Star reader, followed by a Real News
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne comments on the biggest of the Cons’ many lies about the role and capacity of the federal government: Canada’s $18.7-billion deficit has (its) roots in failed economic policies, decisions made before the world financial crisis, including reckless corporate tax cuts. Remember,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Michael Harris offers a theory for the Cons’ handling of the Clusterduff – from their willingness to pay him off to their subsequent decision to cut him loose: Why were the CPC and the PM’s chief of staff willing to risk what
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: One Thing The Fast food Industry Refuses To ‘Super-Size’
“In both of my shops, I look around — There aren’t high schoolers,” ,,, “There are people with families, trying to raise families. And so the whole notion that this is for high schoolers or someone trying to buy their first car or college students trying to get a little
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